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Weep, cheer, or do both at the same time. According to the Housing website, lottery numbers are posted!
Update! Xavier Estevez provides us with this link showing the lottery listings sorted by priority, which hadn’t been linked from the Housing website. He also gives us the following fun facts:
“Only 35 groups, as opposed to 85(!!) last year are doing ECX in the lottery this year. It looks like everyone who got fucked over last year decided not to test their luck again this time.
In this years lottery numbers:
- There are 11 30-point ECX groups.
- There are 16 26.66-point ECX groups.
- There are 7 23.33-point ECX groups.
- There is only 1 20-point ECX group.
“Unless there were like 20 suites held out for same suite rights, it looks like anyone who wanted EC this year will get it. That seems unlikely to me, because there were 29 30-point groups last year. Those groups don’t qualify for same suite rights, and I doubt anyone with a lower number than that would want to hold on to a crappy lower suite.”
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69 Comments
@Rising sophomore Group of 7 rising sophomores with 336. We wanted Claremont but now we’re thinking about trying to get Furnald. Are we basically guaranteed Furnald singles?
@yep yep, that’s a pretty safe bet
@inwood here The pizza at Grandpa’s is excellent. I sometimes think the Isham area is a little *too* quiet. I’m going to let this go through the end of the year, and then it’s straight to Brooklyn.
Do you mind if I ask you some questions about Greenpoint? I’m certainly interested in the area (though, sadly, not the G train). A $1300 2BR is quite the find. If you wouldn’t mind, could you email me at cubrooklynlions@yahoo.com (I’d rather not post my UNI on the site). Thanks.
@inwood i wish i had known about a way better deal in brooklyn before i took the apartment in inwood. looks like i’ll be moving out there as soon as the lease is up. i needed to move within a few days and had no choice but to go through a broker — after knocking on virtually every single door between 214 and 218 over the course of two days… with no luck. i can, however, see the south endzone of baker field from my back window. if i lean out far enough, anyway.
where in brooklyn are you? did you find a better rate for a one-bedroom or a room in a larger apartment? are you a commuting student?
@Well again I’m in Greenpoint. I took a 2-bedroom for $1300 (it was a bit of a find) instead of the Inwood 1-bed for $1200 and got a roommate, so now I have way more extra cash than I would otherwise. And yeah, I’m a commuting undergrad — a very rare species.
I also spent about a month and a half obsessively apartment searching, to be fair, and I only looked at a couple of places in Inwood, despite my best efforts. I lived in a lot of horrible apartments before this one. You can do worse than the Isham area, though — it’s quiet and weird, but it’s kinda pretty and peaceful, too. The pizza at Grandpa’s is excellent. I spent about a week sitting around the park, deciding if I wanted to live there, and it ended up doing well in my estimation… I just can’t resist a cheap and equally nice place.
(Also, it’s way hard to find stuff north of 214th, because that area is mostly co-ops. If you look in Inwood again, try Seaman and Payson Aves, which are mostly rentals, and at similar rates.)
@RE: Your suite I shit in your suite. It’ll be there all summer. Then it’s for you.
@lol It happens every year. I’ve seen it happen about 5 times in this post.
Sophomores who want Furnald go around telling people that Furnald is crap.
Don’t believe them!
Furnald may be quiet but it’s infinitely better than any other sophomore option.
It used to be senior housing for fuck’s sake!
@hrmm #58 — no-fee brokers in inwood? i just ponied up 15% of the first year’s rent for a 1 bedroom up there (just north of isham, and, um, next to baker field). just under $1200 too. but i don’t think it would have been possible without a broker.
@Well the brokers are decent, but after a *crapload* of work, I found a very helpful no-fee — she had three one-bedrooms on Park Terrace East (windows looking out on Isham Park, mostly) that were all pretty nice, all within a few bucks of 1200. I ended up finding a way better deal in Brooklyn, so I live out here instead, but it was a nice second choice.
Inwood’s a weird market, but if you work at it a little bit you can get whatever you want, I found.
@boo mcbain is awesome, live here, all your friends will, so you might as well.
@True If you live in Furnald, you’re going to end up walking down Broadway to McBain for parties and shit anyway. Might as well live there.
@ya know what? I bet all the senior regroups will take the exclusion suites.
@what? Are you crazy?
Seniors living in 173 sq ft doubles?
Sure some seniors in the past have taken the large townhouse doubles… but 173 sq ft, that’s crazy!!!
@Hm... What about a 5-person, 30-point group? Are senior regroup or splitting into general selection our only options?
@#52 Oh, I should add our abysmal number: 2913
@not all is lost Your number is great for summer transfer though.
@That's funny Because I got…
Year 1: 700
Year 2: 500
Year 3: 900
@I got Year 1: 2800
Year 2: 2300
Year 3: 2500
Fuck Columbia and fuck you.
@rising sophmore anybody know: which suites in ruggles have been renovated and which will get renovated this summer? I know it’s a longshot but our 8-person suite has a really good lottery number – any chance we’ll get one?
@rising juniors for rising juniors in the low 2000s…watt studio double still possible? what are the best singles?
@so? 4 rising juniors in the upper 2600’s. Wien singles, yes? Or are there possibilities I’m not considering?
@megu I had 2650 last year and was in the last few singles in wien. they were the only singles left on campus. not bad enough for summer transfer, but mid year transfer is a possibility. to those going into wien, be very careful, the size/ layouts can be misleading due to random columns and pipes.
@Hey! Rising Sophomores:
McBain is fun, all your friends will live there and you’ll regret it if you don’t. Plus the doubles are really big, most are bigger than Carman. Furnald is no fun unless you really need a single, Broadway and Shapiro will give you tiny doubles and they’re really boring cause it’s all upperclassmen.
@i agree furnald is only good if you really need a single and don’t mind being antisocial / living with freshmen for a year. if you’re a rising sophomore with a good number and you want to maintain your social life, go for a really nice mcbain double with a buddy.
@rising soph low 400s for a pair of rising sophs…something nice in mcbain? somewhere better?
@you can prob get furnald.
@CML Also, what’s summer transfer?
@CML Question:
Eight guys on my floor went in as a group hoping for a Ruggles suite and scored a lottery number in the low 200’s. If they wanted to, could they disband and take eight Furnald singles instead (having a sufficiently low lottery number)? Or would this entail some sort of penalty (aside from being douchebags?)
Yahweh be praised, I’m so glad I didn’t enter the lottery.
@there is no penalty for choosing to drop from suite selection into general selection. there’s also nothing particularly douche-baggy about it in this case, if they all end up in furnald. it’s not like they’re leaving somebody else out in the cold.
summer transfer is your last option if you get something really shitty in the lottery. as space opens up for the summer for various reasons, housing assigns rooms to people on the summer transfer list. your point value counts the same way, but the lottery numbers go in reverse order, so people with the worst lottery numbers get first crack in summer transfer.
@GOH God_of_Housing’s lottery cutoff predictions:
https://www.urh.columbia.edu/bldgboard/msgdetail.asp?bldg=Housing+Lottery&no=2818
@hey 2010 you guys dont seem to get it. you cant get broadway singles. you cant get anything in watt (except a relatively small studio double). you cant get anything in river. these arent rooms sophomores get. they will be grabbed up by seniors and juniors will finish off whats left. hope for a furnald single. then try and get a double in nussbaum or broadway. then move to schapiro. if you still dont have a room, come to the realization that the lottery just had its way with you and you’re living in mcbain or wien in a double, hopefully at least with a roommate of your own choosing. if you have a really really shitty lottery number (close to 3000 as they do this in reverse order) you may get lucky and get a summer transfer to somewhere more decent. now stop asking what your chances are of getting rooms in primarily senior dorms.
@congrats, leroy... your prize? an overpriced cubby in morningside heights you’ll get to call home for the next year, complete with 24-hour security to keep your parents at ease.
as always, thanks for playing!
@Leroy I won! I won the housing lottery!
So what’s my prize?
@gotta be kidding me “It’ll be an interesting sociological study to see how the community is affected when a core constituency is made up of randomly-formed suites. This is going to be an exciting and newsworthy lottery.”
sociological study? exciting? newsworthy? wow. lines you’ll only see from a boob affiliated with columbia university.
@Xavier I’m not affiliated with the university any more than any other student is. I don’t work for housing, I just crunched the numbers to find out if I was going to get the floor I wanted.
As for my boobery, it looks like I won’t even get my wish– I didn’t realize there’d be 14 suites held out for same suite, leaving only 7 up for grabs at random, so that study in group dynamics is dead in the water.
@ECX What separates the good ECX suites form the bad ones? Do people usually like high floors, or are there other differences?
@ohio a graduating senior with a housing budget of $1500?
…really?
@To Rising Sophs Let me make this clear because it hasn’t seem to sunk in:
It doesn’t matter that very few people took ECX Suites. Your housing will still suck.
Pray for Furnald, hope you don’t get the shaft. That’s about it.
@Ian Will a 660 get a Rising Sophomore a single in a nice building (Furnald/Broadway/River?)
@yo crone no such luck. hope you like a blind double in mcbain. won’t be shaft, though.
@Sprinkles I’m a graduating senior with a housing budget of $1500 per month. Can I get anything on Manhattan Island that doesn’t involve selling myself by the pound?
@Elna a HOUSING budget of $1500? Consider yourself LUCKY. If you do a roommate situation, 2 BR apartment up in Inwood, or Washington Heights, you will only have to pay about $900-$1000/month, and have a doorman AND money to save up for a lease on a good lower Mhtn apartment.
@Studio, UWS Upper West Side Studio, Grammercy Studio, maybe a downtown studio, efficiency in newish Hells Kitchen singles apartment complex. Possibly a one-bedroom in the scary-side of the lower east side. Lots and lots above 125 street. If you dare.
@Move to Brooklyn $1500, eh? Lucky so-and-so. Move to Brooklyn or Astoria and get two bedrooms! The weather’s fine out here!
A note, though, from a veteran off-campus liver: be wary of those $1200-$1500 studios on the Upper West Side, as they’re frequently horrifying (no water pressure, crumbling walls, demands for key money). If you find one that’s decent, yeah, sure, jump on it, but they’re almost always worse than they seem.
Or go to Inwood and get some of the enormous one-bedrooms on Isham Park, those are only about $1200. I know a couple of good no-fee brokers up there who have tons of nice places, if that’s your thing.
@youareRETARDED um, no.
@housing-clueless What would a group of 6 rising juniors in the 2600s get? Still a shot at EC?
@bubkes is what 6 rising juniors can get, with almost any lottery number.
the first stop for anybody with a question about what they are line to get should be the cutoff history page.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/housing/docs/returning_students/room-selection/cutoff_history.html
if you’d checked it before you registered, you’d have seen that nearly all the 6-person suites are taken by 30-point groups.
@rudy since when did xavier become the expert on columbia housing?
@risoph OMG will 1700s get me an EC double or a broadway single?
@RisingJunior any idea what a low 2200’s number will get a rising junior?
@wait... for exclusion suites…random people can pick a room in a suite setup? you can pick a single in an EC suite during general?
@senior and xaiver, what do you think about senior groups of 6?
@hey xavier since there are so many more people who seemed to have passed up making groups for the exclusion suite…did they predominantly register for gen selection? is anyone putting together a more comprehensive listing of groups by size because that would be way helpful
@besides EC for a senior group that has 6 people, what other suite options are there besides EC?
@Xavier Again Folks, this is unprecedented. There are 56 exclusion suites in EC. Unless 21 groups signed up for same suite, that means that a SIGNIFICANT number of EC exclusion suites will be available in general selection.
Rising sophomores, this means your blind double could be on the 12th floor of EC, with a beautiful view of Queens and East Harlem instead of the McBain shaft!
Fucked-over rising juniors and seniors? You might find yourself with a beautiful EC single with a kitchen and dishwasher instead of a the dubious honor of the less-bad rooms in Wien.
It’ll be an interesting sociological study to see how the community is affected when a core constituency is made up of randomly-formed suites. This is going to be an exciting and newsworthy lottery.
@Matt S. I’m Matt Schoenfeld, and I got number 1 as a senior! BOW before me.
@ok, how about -- i drew 99612 as a senior. will i get housing?
@how about late 2700s as a sophomore? will that even scrape ANY kind of single?
@HAH Prob not, dear.
@Anonymous Will a 2700s as a rising sophomore get me into EC? Based on what Xavier said about the significant number of EC suites.
Please say there is still hope.
@Xavier Sorry risingsoph, you’re probably still fucked; and even if you got in, I’m not sure that I’d want to pick an EC double blind. You might want to look into summer transfer.
Even though EC is a shitshow, the number of rooms overall remains pretty much a constant, so the worst 100 10-point numbers will probably still get the worst 100 rooms. All of the rising sophs who didn’t pick ECX had to go somewhere else, so they’ll end up making the market for choice sophomore rooms elsewhere that much tougher.
I’m guessing that the rising juniors with bad numbers will snap up all of the ECX singles that go to general, and rising sophs who drop down to general as a group of two might go for the doubles on some of the higher floors.
#13 and 14, have a look at this link, which I wish I had found before massaging all of that data myself:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/housing/docs/returning_students/room-selection/groupshistory.html
The ECX data has this interesting trend where it goes up and down each year– a friend of mine explained the effect to me:
-one year, everyone who wants EC gets it
-the next year, everyone thinks its easy, so more groups sign up, and then they end up getting fucked.
-the following year, everyone who got fucked stays away, so anyone who wants in gets it again.
Here’s some food for thought in closing: if 5 sophomores had signed up as a 10-point ECX group this year, they would have gotten it. Keep that in mind, class of 2012.
@JWeg Hey Xavier,
All groups with 5 people, even those who didn’t tick the ‘exclusion rule’ will still be able to select EC suites — this could possibly include some all sophomore groups, right?
@Xavier JWeg,
That’s a great question. It depends if there’s a rule preventing non-ECX groups from picking ECX suites. Someone call Mark Chatoor or Steve Estes and find out.
In any case, I did a little more research and found out that 14 ECX suites are held out for same-suite rights, so assuming no ECX groups break up, only 7 suites/35 beds will fall into this weird category.
The last time anything like this happened was back in 96-97, when, according to the housing website, there were only 32 ECX groups. It’d be interesting to see how they handled that extra space that year.
I’m guessing that those 5 sophomore groups will be screwed, either by a higher value group, or if the suites go to general, by the rising juniors who will surely snap up those singles rather than live in Wien.
@... what do you get if you’re in the 900s as a junior? if we drop down to general can we get singles in broadway?
@Listing by priority https://www1.columbia.edu/sec/cu/reshalls/lists/LotteryNumbers0708byPriority.pdf
@ummm if it says we’re registered as a suite and we actually registered as a group in general does that mean we’re screwed?
@Yes Yes.
@Boo What’s 1700 as a sophomore gonna get me? Don’t say the shaft…
@cupcake 1700 will get you anything but the shaft…i was shafted — we had 2400